5. O3-destroying
chlorofluorohydrocarbons (CFCs) such as chlorofluorohydrocarbon CFC-12, CCl2F2
were replaced under the Montreal Convention (1987) by hydrofluorohydrocarbon
refrigerants and propellants such as hydrofluorohydrocarbon HFC-23 (CHF3)
but the HFCs are now posing an increasing threat because of their increasing use and high GWP.

8. Nitrous oxide (N2O)
derives from agricultural use of nitrogenous fertilizers and from fossil fuel
(coal, gas and oil) combustion.

9. CO2 concentration.
As determined from ice cores the atmospheric CO2 concentration has
been 180-300 parts per million (ppm) for the last 800,000 years (excluding the
last century), during which time Homo
sapiens finally evolved (glaciation at low CO2 and inter-glacial
at high CO2). Indeed these circa 100,000 year cycle oscillations
(determined by the earth’s orientation towards the sun and the ellipticity of
its orbit) crucially contributed to the final evolution of man (repeated severe
selection pressures). Atmospheric CO2 , now 394 ppm and increasing at over 2.4 ppm per
year (seasonally oscillating, Mauna Loa Observatory, Hawaii), is reported as a
dry air mole fraction defined as the number of molecules of CO2 divided
by the number of all molecules in air, including CO2 itself, after
water vapor has been removed. Man-made from burning fossil fuels (decreasing 14C;
fossil CO2 lacks 14C) and deforestation (initially
non-tropical, now mostly tropical).

16. World Bank analysts have
recently re-assessed annual global greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution as 50% bigger
than hitherto thought and that the livestock contribution is over 51% of the
bigger figure (major element: 20 year time frame considered for CH4
GWP).

9. A 4-10-fold increase in major
flood events per decade around the world (1950-2000) (increased sea
temperature means increased humidity, increased precipitation). Statistically
proven AGW cause for recent Welsh floods but hard to prove in general because
of weather variability (cf cannot prove an individual smoker’s lung
cancer due to smoking).

10. Consensus prediction of an
increased number of the more intense storms as AGW increases
(arguable doubling of tropical hurricane intensity 1950-2000; tropical cyclone
power increase parallels increased sea temperature).

8. Climate genocide.Both Dr James
Lovelock FRS (Gaia hypothesis) and Professor Kevin Anderson ( Director, Tyndall
Centre, UK)
have recently estimated that only about 0.5 billion people will survive this
century due to unaddressed, man-made global warming. Noting that the
world population is expected to reach 9.5 billion by 2050, these estimates
translate to a climate genocide involving deaths of 10 billion people this
century, this including roughly 2 times the present populations of various non-European
groups, specifically 6 billion under-5 year old infants, 3 billion
Muslims, 2 billion Indians, 1.3 billion non-Arab Africans, 0.5 billion
Bengalis, 0.3 billion Pakistanis and 0.3 billion Bangladeshis. Biofuel genocide (food for fuel, price
increase, volatility).

E.
Urgency of required action.

1. Just as we turn to top medical
specialists for advice on life-threatening disease, so we turn to the
opinions of top scientists and in particular top biological and climate
scientists for Climate Change risk assessment. Thus some opinions: (a) Professor James Hansen (top US
climate scientist, head, NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies): “We face
a climate emergency”; (b) Nobel
Laureate Professor Peter Doherty: “We are in real danger”; (c) Professor David de Kretser AC
(eminent medical scientist and former Governor of Victoria, Australia): “There
is no doubt in my mind that this is the greatest problem confronting mankind at
this time and that it has reached the level of a state of emergency”; (d) Dr Andrew Glikson (palaeo-climate
scientist, ANU): “The continuing use of the atmosphere as an open sewer for
industrial pollution has … raised CO2 levels to 387 ppm CO2
to date, leading toward conditions which existed on Earth about 3 million years
(Ma) ago (mid-Pliocene), when CO2 levels rose to about 400 ppm,
temperatures to about 2–3 degrees C and sea levels by about 25 +/- 12 metres”;
(e) Synthesis Report of the March
2009 Copenhagen Scientific Climate Change Conference: “Inaction is
inexcusable”; and (f) 2010 Open Letter
by 255 members of the US National Academy of Sciences: “Delay is not an
option”.

2. Climate emergency actions urgently
required:(a) Change of
societal philosophy to one of scientific risk management and
biological sustainability with complete cessation of species extinctions
and zero tolerance for lying; (b) Urgent
reduction of atmospheric CO2 to a safe level of about 300 ppm
(as recommended by leading climate and biological scientists to address
the current mass species extinction event and to permit return and
sustainability of Arctic sea ice); (c) Rapid
switch to the best non-carbon and renewable energy (solar, wind,
geothermal, wave, tide and hydro options that have currently roughly the same
market price as coal burning-based power and a 4 times cheaper “true price”
taking environmental and human impacts into account) and to energy efficiency, public transport,
needs-based production, re-afforestation and return of carbon as biochar to
soils coupled with correspondingly rapid cessation offossil
fuel burning, deforestation, methanogenic livestock production and
population growth.

3. Budget approach to last remaining permissible
GHG pollution.

(a). Professor Hans Joachim
Schellnhuber (Director, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research,
Germany): for a 67% chance of avoiding a catastrophic 2C temperature rise
the World must cease CO2 emissions by 2050 and top per capita
greenhouse gas (GHG) polluters such as the US and Australia must get to zero CO2
emissions by 2020.

(b) Australian Climate
Commission's 2011 "The Critical Decade" report: for a 75%
chance of avoiding a disastrous 2 degree Centigrade temperature rise the
World can emit no more than 1 trillion tonnes of CO2 before reaching
zero emissions in about 2050. Australia's
high Domestic plus Exported GHG pollution rate means it must get to zero
emissions in 1.9 years (or in 4.6 years ignoring Exported GHG pollution).

(c) WBGU (that advises German
Government on climate change), “Solving the climate dilemma: the budget
approach” (2009): for a 75% chance of avoiding a disastrous 2 degree
Centigrade (2C) temperature rise the World can emit no more than 0.6
trillion tonnes of CO2 before reaching zero emissions in about 2050.
Australia's
high Domestic plus Exported GHG pollution rate means that by August 2011 it had
already used up its “fair share”.

F. Further key points..

1. Gas is not clean, it is dirty,
1 tonne of methane (CH4) generating 2.8 tonnes CO2 on
combustion. Gas burning is cleaner than coal burning in terms of twice the
MWh/tonne CO2 emitted and less health damaging pollutants but
gas is not cleaner than coal burning GHG-wise. Thus methane (CH4)
leaks (3.3% in the US; 7.9% from fracking shale deposits) and is 105 times
worse than CO2 as a GHG on a 20 year time frame taking aerosol
impacts into account, this meaning that a Carbon Tax-driven coal to gas
transition could double electric power industry-derived GHG pollution (if shale
gas used).

2. Climate change is damaging and
destroying ecosystems (ecocide) and the species extinction rate is now
100-1,000 times greater than normal (Australia is a word leader).
We must not destroy what we cannot replace.

3. Leading scientists, economists and
analysts slam the Carbon Trading Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) approach as
empirically ineffective, dangerously counterproductive and inherently fraudulent
because it involves governments selling licences to pollute the one common
atmosphere of all countries.

4. 2.6 % leakage of CH4 yields the
same greenhouse effect as burning the remaining 97.4% (noting that 1g CH4 has 105 times the
GWP of 1 g CO2) – ergo, stop gas exploitation, aquifer-poisoning and
aquifer-depleting fracking of shale and coal seams.

5. Many countries (e.g. EU countries
and Australia)
support a 450 ppm CO2 -e and 2C temperature rise "cap".
However the Synthesis Report of the 2,500-delegate March 2009 scientific
Copenhagen Climate Conference indicates that we have already exceeded 450 ppm
CO2-e and over 90% of delegates polled thought 2C was inevitable.

6. Atmospheric CO2 must be urgently
returned to about 300 ppmfor a safe
Planet.for all peoples and all species. Circa 320 ppm CO2 is
required for restoration of the Arctic sea ice and for coral
sustainability. However atmospheric CO2 concentration is currently
394 ppm and is increasing at about 2.4 ppm per year. Less not more!

7. Stop shale oil exploitation
(e.g. Canada-US keystone oil pipeline) means “game over” for Planet. Dr James Hansen
(NASA): “The tar sands are estimated (e.g., see IPCC Fourth Assessment Report)
to contain at least 400 GtC (equivalent to about 200 ppm CO2).
Easily available reserves of conventional oil and gas are enough to take
atmospheric CO2 well above 400 ppm, which is unsafe for life on
earth. However, if emissions from coal are phased out over the next few decades
and if unconventional fossil fuels including tar sands are left in the ground,
it is conceivable to stabilize earth's climate. Phasing out emissions from coal
is itself an enormous challenge. However, if the tar sands are thrown into the
mix, it is essentially game over.”

1. Carbon burning pollutants have
been estimated from Canadian and New Zealand data to kill about
10,000 Australians yearly. Australians dying each year from the effects of
pollutants from vehicles, coal burning for electricity and other carbon burning
total about 2,200, 4,600 and 2,800, respectively.

2. Australia has about 0.3% of the
World’s population but its Domestic plus Exported GHG pollution is about
3% of the World total (climate exceptionalism, climate racism, and climate
injustice in addition to horrific intergenerational inequity).

4. It is estimated that an Australian
carbon tax of circa $25/tonne carbon will encourage gas-fired power,
$70/tonne carbon will encourage wind and about $200/tonne carbon will encourage
concentrated solar thermal installation (indeed Australian Government hopes
for a Carbon Tax-driven coal to gas transition).

5. True carbon price. A risk
avoidance-based estimate of $7.6 million for the value of a statistical
life and Australia’s annual Domestic GHG pollution (2009) of 600 million tonnes
CO2-e (162 million tonnes Carbon) yields a Carbon Price of $7.6 million x
10,000 annual deaths/ 162 million tonnes Carbon = $469/tonne carbon.

6. The Australian Bureau of
Agricultural and Resource Economics (ABARE) has projected that Australia's
black coal exports will increase at an average rate of 2.6% per year over the
next 20 years and that liquid natural gas (LNG) exports will increase at 9% per
year over the same period. Further, it is estimated that Australian exports of
dried brown coal will reach 20 million tonnes by 2020, this corresponding to
about 59 million tonnes CO2-e after combustion.

8.. Success in “tackling climate
change” is surely measured in terms of GHG pollution reduction but
Australia’s Domestic plus Exported GHG pollution increased from 1,018 Mt CO2-e
(CO2 equivalent) in 2000 to 1,415 million tonnes CO2-e in
2009 and is expected to reach about 1,799 Mt CO2-e by 2020 and
4,490b Mt CO2-e in 2050. However Treasury ABARE and US EIA data show
the following Australian Domestic and Exported GHG pollution (in millions of
tonnes of CO2-equivalent, Mt CO2-e) for Australia under
the proposed Carbon Price plan:

1. The Beyond Zero Emissions (BZE)
plan for 100% renewable stationary energy for Australia by 2020 (Zero
Carbon Australia by 2020, ZCA 2020) involves 40% wind energy, 60% concentrated
solar thermal (CST) with molten salts energy storage for 24/7 baseload power,
biomass and hydroelectric backup (for days of no wind and low sunshine) and a
HV DC and HC AC national power grid. The BZE scheme was costed at $370 billion
over 10 years, with roughly half spent on CST, one quarter on wind and one
quarter on the national electricity grid.

2. Seligman scheme. A scheme for 100%
renewable energy for Australia
has been set out by top electrical engineer Professor Peter Seligman (a
major player in development of the bionic ear). Professor Seligman’s scheme
involves wind, solar thermal, other energy sources, hydrological energy storage
(in dams on the Nullabor Plain in Southern Australia), an HV AC and HV DC
electricity transmission grid and a cost over 20 years of $253 billion.